When it comes to Christmas, I think it’s nice for the kids to get involved with making cards and presents – especially for grandparents and teachers.

In this busy festive season, time is of the essence – plus I know my little ones are fiercely independent and like to do as much as they can themselves. You want homemade gifts that look nice but are fairly easy for children to make. Here’s a round-up of some of the gifts that we have made in the past, plus a few new ideas.

Where possible, I’ve included links so you can easily purchase the materials you need. Just click on any of the links to be taken to Amazon. These are affiliate links – this means that if you click on any of the Amazon links in this post and go on to make a purchase, I will make a small amount of commission.

Shrinky dink keyrings

I saw this idea on this blog and it took me back to when I was little and used to make shrinky dink keyrings and badges. Izzy loved doing this – she sat at the table and drew pictures of all her favourite people on the special plastic. She even made two featuring her school badge for her teachers. As she finished each one, I just popped a hole in the top using a hole punch, and put in the oven. They only take about 10-20 seconds to shrink down, then you add the keyrings and these are really quick, easy gifts.

Just make sure that the oven is hot enough (the instructions come with the plastic shrinky sheets) as we did end up burning a couple when they took too long to shrink – I was a bit over keen and just needed to give the oven 10 minutes to warm up first.

These do take a few days from start to finish as you need to give them time to fully dry before you can paint and varnish them, but each stage doesn’t take long at all. They are lovely gifts, and over 12 months after Izzy made them I still use mine everyday to put my earrings and necklace in, and her Daddy uses his for loose change. You can read our full blog post and find out how to make them here.

Salt dough tree decorations

Like the jewellery bowls, these are best made one day and then painted and varnished the next. You can make salt dough into anything you like – we used Christmas themed cookie cutters to make tree decorations – find out how we made them here. If you don’t fancy making salt dough or having to cook it in the oven, try air drying clay instead.

Okay so there is a little theme here – there’s loads of different things you can decorate with fabric paint and pens. I just let Izzy loose on this plain white tea towel and she decorated it for her Auntie (Clara added some scribbles too). All you have to do is iron it once it’s dry and the fabric paint will stay put when you wash it.

So many amazing ideas here! I tried your salt dough recipe and let’s just say someone thinks they look like I Unrisen Yorkie puds and to me they’re just burnt hahah! I’m gonna try painting over and hoping a painted hand suffices #twinklytuesday

I love the idea of fabric paint or pens to personalise so many different items. We’ve just got some air drying clay to make some decorations too – possibly to personalise for teacher gifts. Great and inspiring list! #TheList